Local Stories and Happenings ~ San Juan Islands Hotels & Resorts
3 favorite storytellers
i had another great stay at ace hotel in seattle recently. their “everything you need and nothing you don’t” ethos really works for me, especially on business trips to the city. i rank the portland ace among my favorite hotels, and am glad to report that the older seattle version is more of the same. in fact, the front desk staff at seattle ace really put the place in the adam-approved category. stylish, simple and affordable lodging in the heart of downtown, among all the fluff hotels offering a bunch of stuff you never use for twice as many dollars. who wouldn’t love that? and they rescue nearly derelict old downtown buildings (which i love) in the process. wish i’d thought of that. but that’s not what i’m here to talk about.
the dark spot of my trip happened in a movie theater. i’m a reluctant cormac mccarthy fan. his books torture me slowly like a creeping disease but i can’t stop reading. no county for old men chewed me up and spat me out. why, then, did i think i should see the coen bros movie version in the theater on a cold, rainy night in seattle…alone? the movie is so well-made in all respects that it carries all the vile, putrid and irresistible agony of reading the book. mccarthy can really tell the story of a world gone so wrong it is unrecognizable, so can the coen bros.; read and/or watch at your own peril.
as dark a spot as that may have been, i found myself finally having time to sit and really listen to the shepherd’s dog, the most recent offering from iron & wine. sam beam is another favorite story-teller, and i was glad to find solace in the sheer beauty of truly great song-writer striking on all cylinders. my aural self started zeroing in early on the song “carousel.” i do that. i obsess. when a song gives me a gut check, i can listen to it all day. and boy did this song start to get to me. it wasn’t until i listened to it about 20 times in as many hours that i started really paying attention. i was surprised, even a little stunned, to find the lyrics of the song so complex but so clearly carrying the same message as no country for old men, the story of a world gone so wrong we get lost on our own streets. in this world it becomes so important to live by principles you can believe in and stick to. without personal standards we run the very serious risk of arriving someplace we really shouldn’t be.
from time to time we all find ourselves acting out dramas that we don’t belong in. we are a lucky lot, though, aren’t we, to have story-tellers like cormac mccarthy, the coen bros., and sam beam to reach really deep into our muck and pull out something so vital? i am obsessing over the lyrics to “carousel” and won’t even attempt to pass on what they mean to me. instead they are reproduced here for your consideration. i’m not sure it resonates the same without the post-mccarthy funk, but i’d love to hear your thoughts…
carousel: iron & wine
Almost home
When I missed the bottom stair
You were braiding your gray hair
It had grown so long
Since I’d been gone
And the perfect girls
By the pool, they would protest
The cross around their necks
But our sons were overseas
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees
Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a Persian rug
With your bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on a TV stand
And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk of Noah’s clothes
Almost home
We got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep
So the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed
And the cops couldn’t care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, “Please, before I go
May our only honored bone
Be the kinship of the kids and the riot squad”
